


Burning Down the House

by quondam



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-09
Updated: 2013-01-13
Packaged: 2017-11-24 06:16:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/631349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quondam/pseuds/quondam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Garrus begins to suffer from the illness that plagued his mother, Shepard is pushed to the limit to find out just how far she would go to help the person she loves. Set during ME3.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. We've got a match.

The main battery was vacant. A rare sight, or at least whenever Garrus was onboard. She'd come down there after Mars, after dropping Kaidan off on the Citadel for medical attention, and after telling Joker to plot a course towards Palaven. There'd been no part of Garrus left in those walls back then, he'd taken everything with him and scrubbed the computers clean even before the Alliance had started the retrofit of the former Cerberus vessel. Just the same, the space had been a comfort, one she needed with his and her planets burning, and that clean, metallic smell had been enough hope for her in the time of desperation. Maybe he would still be alive when they got to Menae.

He had been breathing as it turned out, looking authoritative and sharp in the flashy new armor he wore, and with him he'd brought all the minor touches to the main battery that made it _lived_ in. A small crate of belongings, that bottle of wine he'd enticed her with, a few data pads and even pieces of scrap paper, the formerly blank terminal screens now reading not just of calibrations and statistics on the ship's best weapon, but of research into the family members of his that were missing. Shepard picked up a data pad, not meaning to pry but unable to satisfy that curiosity otherwise, and glanced over the gibberish. A technical person of his caliber, she was not. She replaced the belongings where they'd been so nothing was amiss, and with a deep breath of the new soft, musky scent of Garrus filling the walls, left the main battery behind.

_Talk to the female_ , Mordin had said, and as Shepard passed by the lowered privacy screens of the med bay, she gave consideration to the idea. Back on Sur'Kesh she'd been rather abrupt with the krogan, treating her as though she was a bartering chip and little more. There was no lie to it, that's what the woman was, but perhaps, just perhaps, Shepard hadn't needed to be so blunt on the matter. Swallowing, she redirected her course and hung a left, looking to make right what she'd done wrong.

The doors opened, and where she'd been used to seeing Chakwas as the sole occupant, the medical bay was otherwise filled to the brim, the female krogan perched on her own bed, looking withdrawn but reserved, calm. Past her, just beyond the silhouette of her large frame, Mordin stood at the side of another bed, while a patient—mostly obscured—pulled on their tunic. Tunic? No, that wasn't a member of crew. It was Garrus.

Her brows knitted, craning her neck slightly, widening the course of her path to eye the goings on at the back of the room, but she was abruptly met by the startled gaze of not only Garrus, but Mordin as well.

"Commander—" The female krogan said quickly, and Shepard's eyes darted towards her on instinct alone, giving the other two half a breath to finish whatever they were doing in haste. Shepard nodded her head and made move to look back towards the others, but it was Mordin speaking the next time, just as fast and flighty as ever.

"Ah, yes. Shepard. Good to see you. Should speak with Eve."

Eve? On another day she might have questioned it, but her attention was otherwise pulled in multiple directions. Garrus made an attempt to slip on past the group of three, fastening his shirt at the side to tighten it to his slim waist. Shepard caught his arm, effectively stopping him in his tracks.

"Everything okay?" She asked—no, demanded.

He blinked and hesitated, a nervous apprehension she spotted in the movements of his plates, and just nodded, mandibles flaring. "Of course."

Not a bone in her body, organic or synthetic, believed his words, but it wasn't the time or the place to be picking a fight and laying down the Commander voice on the person who was, in many unspoken ways, her lover. She let him go instead, her fingers lingering on the back of his wrist, a silent and subtle brush of affection, and Garrus' previously bewildered expression softened. He left, and much to Shepard's dismay, Mordin had already moved on, back to one of the work stations, gazing down into a microscope.

_Talk to Eve._ She nearly grumbled aloud, perturbed at all but being locked into the conversation now, standing only a foot or two from the female. Shepard gritted her teeth, and then turned back towards Eve, replacing the grimace with a forced smile.

The conversation wasn't as bad as she'd imagined it to be, as it turned out not all krogan tended to be savages. Wrex had done his part in proving that myth wrong, but she'd always seen him as something of an anomaly alongside Grunt, but with Eve as well… maybe there was more to it. She didn't let it show, but somewhere deep in Shepard's core, she felt a pang of sadness for the woman as she spoke of the loss of her children, the suffering she'd done because of Maelon's research, but how it would all be worth it in the end. Brave, Shepard thought. She was brave.

She bid goodbye to Eve, and though Mordin looked worn and occupied, she stopped to interrupt whatever delicate procedure he was in the middle of. She leant her hip into the cabinetry, crossed her arms over her chest.

"How's that cure going?"

"Edge of breakthrough. Maelon's data helping. Wise to save it, Shepard."

A mental pat on the back for herself, then. She'd been unsure of her decision back then, had thought maybe destroying the data was merciful given the states of all levels of decay the volunteers had been in who had suffered for that information. But as necessary as the genophage cure was, it wasn't what was on her mind. She was silent, biding her time, and just as Mordin turned back towards his work, she let it out.

"Why don't you tell me what's really going on with Garrus." Just as before, it wasn't a question, not really.

The salarian didn't look away from his research this time, a strategic move as he scrolled through something on a data pad. "Doctor patient privilege."

Her lips pursed, tapping a toe impatiently on the flooring. "Never used that excuse on me before, Mordin."

"Also never asked."

Okay, so maybe _that_ was true. Sure, she was always kept abreast on the details of people's healing wounds, just enough information to know if they were available for a specific mission or not. Hell, she'd never even glanced over the medical supply requisitions when they came across her desk. Shepard had always simply made her mark, trusting those who made the lists of needed supplies and frankly, a little too busy to really care where Cerberus' money went. Not that Miranda wouldn't have just gone over her head anyway if she hadn't agreed to it.

"As the Commander of this ship," she started, standing straighter in a posture befitting someone of her status, "it's my right to know if something's wrong with one of my crew. I can't be bringing someone out with me, if—" The speech wasn't prepared, but it sure sounded like it.

"Not my place," he said with a shake of his head.

Her hands fell to her side, palm gripping the edge of the countertop as her knuckles went white out of frustration. "I can just have EDI give me the information, you know."

"Ah," Mordin said, and finally looked up to her, a glimmer to his eye. "Not if no records kept."

"I know _you_ ," she stirred, pacing. "You're a scientist, part of that is writing shit down. I don't think you even ever ate dinner without making a record of calories consumed, Mordin. So cut the crap, and tell me what's going on."

"Not asking as Commander," he lifted and canted his head just enough to offer her a sidelong glance, "asking as something more. Because of that… not my place."

"Is this important?" Shepard asked, changing the subject as she motioned towards the half-full well plate between them on the countertop, micropipette laid out across the dish's edge. "Like, 'holds the cure for the genophage' kind of important?" An eyebrow raised.

"That?" Mordin chuckled, shaking his head. "No, was working while clearing head. More efficient gelatin based alcohol delivery sys—"

Before he could get another word out, she swiped her hand across the cabinet's surface, sending the droplets of viscous liquid and the well plate towards the floor. Mordin reacted just as she wanted, scrambling to catch it before all was lost from even his insignificant project, and as he did—pointless, she knew, as the slurry of mixtures rained down on the med bay floor—Shepard reached around him for the data pad he'd carried over from where he'd been conversing with Garrus.

"Woops," she feigned, tucking her newly procured item behind her back, a single hand raised in display of her mistake. "Best clean that up. Tell you what," Shepard backed away towards the exit, door opening as she neared, "I'll send a crewman to help."

Mordin chattered to himself, ignoring her as he mourned the real death of one of his experiments, and Shepard took the opportunity to slip out the door. They shut behind her and in the next breath Shepard pulled the data pad to her chest, crossing her arms over it as she hugged it close, breathing out a sigh of relief.

She ventured a glance back towards the main battery, the place she'd presumed Garrus had retreated to after their brief passing. No doubt he'd play it off cool, head bowed down to his console and refusing to meet her eyes, instead talking a big game about work to be done and ushering her off to leave him in peace. When he felt the fires to be calmed, he'd show his face to her again, setting the interaction behind them.

Shepard squeezed the data pad a little tighter and though her feet begged her to seek him out, even if only to be rebuffed, Shepard stood silently still. When she did finally put her body into motion, it wasn't towards him, but instead back towards the elevator. Never did she like walking into a situation blind, and if he wasn't going to tell her without a fight, then she would do as she'd always done: find out for herself.


	2. You might get what you're after.

Given its owner, Shepard shouldn't have been surprised with the level of encryption on the data pad, and yet her frustration rose as all her usual avenues came up fruitless. This was the point in a mission when she would usually turn towards Tali or EDI or maybe even Garrus himself and call upon them for their expertise, and though she was sure EDI already knew what trouble she was getting up to, Shepard couldn't bring herself to make the outward admittance to the AI. With the data pad synced to her terminal, Shepard sighed and let the final program run its course. Two hours, thirty one minutes remaining.

The door behind her hissed and she shoved the _borrowed_ pad aside and beneath a stack of others, turning the terminal screen off while her shoulders stiffened at another's presence. There was only one person she'd granted free access to her quarters, and even without the clack of his boots on the flooring, Shepard would have known who it was.

"Garrus," she said, her voice raised an octave, a poor attempt at disguising her earlier actions. Shepard glanced to her omni-tool, taking the time. It was far later than she'd thought. "Expected you here… hours ago."

"Ran into some complications, but no worry—" he amended swiftly as he stepped further into her cabin, leaning his shoulder up against the end of her display cabinet while looking down to where she sat at her desk, "it's all been handled already."

Although Shepard had punched a few reporters in the mouth, when it came down to it she was an old-pro at keeping what she _really_ wanted to say and do to herself. At worst, an edge of irritation caught the tail end of her words as she spoke, but on the whole, she was an actress when she needed to be. Talking to the Council, promising Anderson and Hackett she had things more figured out than she really did, reassuring her crew that they'd all return from a mission safe and sound, and even faking orgasms a few lovers into her past. So rather than barely conceal the turmoil that bred in her chest, Shepard let herself push all the rest to the side.

She raised the foot of the leg crossed over the other at the knee, the toe of her sock brushing against his clothed spur. "That's why I keep you around."

"I think you said a few nights ago that you only kept me around for my _tongue_ , actually," he corrected with his mandibles spread wide, a cheeky turian grin.

"Mm, that's right. How could I forget?"

"I'm a little hurt," he said, mock indignation in his dual-flanged vocals.

Shepard smiled, and easily enough, she was no longer pretending to be taken up in his companionship. "Can I ever make it up to you?" That foot rose, sliding up along his thigh and towards his narrowed waist.

A cough caught in Garrus' throat, his feet growing unsteady beneath him to the point where he even needed to reach out, fingertips brushing against the edge of her desk for an added point of balance.

"Yeah," she nodded, and letting her foot drop back to the floor, scooted the rolling chair in his direction, "that's what I thought." In the end, she was just close enough to reach her hand up to the fabric of his tunic, tugging unrelentingly until he was forced forward and down, bending at the waist, closer to where she sat. Their faces brought together, Shepard ghosted her lips over his mandible, only brushing gently to his flesh every inch or so when he rhythmically flared them in an expression of his excitement and anxiousness.

"Spirits," he struggled in getting his words out, even more so as Shepard finally touched down her lips against the flesh just before his auditory canal, the warmth wet moisture of the tip of her tongue barely a hint in her actions, "I was worried I'd be too late."

"What'd you think?" An arm slung over his shoulder, fingers slipping down in through the opening for his neck as fingers traversed the heat of the back of his carapace. She kissed his brow plate, and then worked southward, over the smaller ones that made up, for all intents and purposes, his nose. "That Commander Shepard sometimes isn't up for the job? You should know better, Garrus," she reprimanded, pulling back just far enough to shake her head while their eyes continued their otherwise contact. "I've always got time for you."

With sudden, brave gusto, Garrus behaved more human than turian, pressing his mouth against hers. She wasn't surprised by it, had even grown to hope for such shows of affection from him when they were alone ever since they had been reunited on Menae, and so Shepard's lips were already parted for his. Her hand pulled from his back, instead slung around his neck and in the hollow of his cowl as she leaned back some in her chair, continuing to keep him close. Garrus purred and groaned in response to her increasingly loud, throaty moans. He acted—and this time he did surprise her—hoisting her up and forcing her thighs into the indentations at his waist, using his hips as a shelf of support. Shepard clung to him for dear life and without further ado, Garrus carried her, positively and absolutely wrapped about him, to the bed they shared.

—

Not long after her skin had cooled from its flushed coloring due to both heat and orgasm, after she had worked muscles so hard she was sure she could already feel that pleasant sore ache, after Garrus had curled in towards her in his exhausted state, Shepard lay awake beside him, watching the darkness of space pass slowly up above.

Somewhere beyond the cocoon of warmth created by each exhale of Garrus' heated breath against her bare skin and the warmth he shared with her under the blankets, the soft _ping_ of her terminal's alert resounded in the darkness. It was quiet and solitary, and if it weren't for the echo of it reverberating in her ears in the otherwise silent bedroom, she might have thought she'd dreamt it altogether, or at the very least, attributed it to a case of tinnitus that had been wrecking even her new, Cerberus-improved ear drums.

She licked her lip, salty still with the taste of the turian next to her, and gently rolled to her side, facing inward to Garrus. He didn't stir at the slight jostling, he'd never been a light sleeper which had always struck her as odd given their line of work, so Shepard tried not to press her luck much further. Part of her mind was drawn away from the present toward the immediate future, stuck obsessing over the possibilities over what that data pad held for her, and yet another portion sought out the recent past, her eyes blinking shut as she swore she could feel the rocking motion of his pelvis against hers. Shepard rubbed her thighs together, squeezing at the imagined sensation while she scooted herself in even closer, breathing in the scent of his plates and skin.

There wasn't a thing wrong with him, she told herself. There couldn't be. It wasn't just her denial, she rationalized, even as Mordin's careful and somewhat fearful tone rang in her ears otherwise. Garrus was warm, he was strong, he was unrelenting, he was everything he'd always been. Hell, even the scarring on his mandible had healed over more than she'd ever expected while they'd been apart. Shepard laid a hand against the front of his carapace, manually feeling him breathe while she listened to it as well. In. Out. In. Out. She timed her own breaths with his own before she even knew it, and then together they were breathing just as strong and steady. In. Out. It was a simple thing, a constant thing, and for a second it let Shepard find her calm. He was fine. Of course he was fine.

When she wanted to believe something, Shepard could convince herself of almost anything. And at that moment, more than anything in the universe, maybe even more than she wanted to get rid of the reapers, Shepard needed to believe all was well with the person curled up beside her.

—

Hours later, Shepard woke to the soft buzz of an alarm paired with the subtle, gradual raising of the cabin's lights. The only good thing about being in Alliance custody, she fondly recalled, had been the ability to sleep in. Not that she hadn't missed the structure of having things to do, as she'd found herself stir crazy by the second day, but that solid seven or eight hours… it had been heavenly. Shepard groaned as her body stretched, legs extending out towards the foot of her bed, arms up towards the headboard, palms pressed flush against the half wall there.

"Get up," she said after clearing her throat, nudging her forehead against Garrus' own. He offered a noncommittal grunt in reply, so she sweetened the offer. "Get up and you can shower with me." He grunted again, albeit a sweeter, more interested sound. "Meet me in three."

With a pat to his arm and a belated, hesitated kiss to his forehead, Shepard peeled herself from the bedsheets and headed for the bathroom. She passed her desk, moving on by the blinking indicator light of the stolen data pad, and once behind the closed bathroom door, drowned herself in the steam of the shower. The routine was, well, _routine_. Soap, shampoo, conditioner. Lather and shave all the necessary parts while the grogginess washed itself away. But it was only when she was reaching to turn the water off that she realized she'd spent the entire shower's length alone.

She towel dried her hair and then wrapped the damp cloth around herself before leaving the bathroom, but where she expected to see Garrus still asleep in the bed, having presumably never gotten up, she found him not just awake, but already mostly dressed, fishing around the floor for his tunic. A question appeared in her risen brow as she stood at the top of the steps, looking down at him and her bedroom.

"Forget something?" Shepard asked, more than a hint of teasing lust in her voice.

Garrus raised his head for only the briefest of moments before beginning to turn his shirt right side out. His facial plates also seemed inquisitive in a similar expression. "What?"

"I can't trust you to listen when you're asleep, I guess," she sighed and stepped down to meet him where he stood, rising on the balls of her feet to press her mouth to his jaw. "But you really do need to shower—you smell like sex."

"Oh," he said, ducking his head as a bit of quiet crept out. "Yeah. You're right. I should do… that. There enough time?"

She glanced towards the clock on her nightstand rather than call up her omni-tool while she searched through her drawers, pulling out underwear and a bra. "Make it fast and we can even get breakfast."

"Right," he nodded, and quickly enough began to pull at his trousers he'd only just put on, unfastening them as he walked towards the bathroom. Garrus stopped on the way, pausing behind Shepard, and after lingering, took a second to nuzzle the back of her wet hair. " _Right_."

Shepard turned to see him go, smiling at his backside as she pulled on her undergarments.

The sound of the shower and fan system clicked on behind the closed door and Shepard headed to her desk, hairbrush in hand. She powered up her terminal screen and set out as any other morning, scrolling through the messages she'd missed in her sleep. Nothing terribly important—if it had been, EDI would have woken her—but rather it was simply the _usual_ , and Shepard was thankful for the ordinary. Supply requisitions, a couple pieces of not particularly interesting nor helpful intel, an updated itinerary and expected arrival time for Tuchanka.

From the corner of her eye she caught the flickering light of a data pad. Her stomach dropped at the reminder of the previous night. Shepard reached for it, pushing the others aside, and as she took it into her lap and turned the screen on, Garrus emerged from the shower, steam following him as he went.

"What do you think of Eve?" She questioned, eyes scanning over the print on her screen while he began to towel dry and dress.

"Who?"

"Eve—you know that's what Mordin's calling the female krogan."

He lifted his head to look to her, eyes squinted, stern, serious, and confused. "What are you talking about? You'd have to go all the way to Tuchanka to find a female krogan."

Though she was listening, part of Shepard wasn't really _listening_. Too lost in the information on the data pad at that exact moment, it took Shepard an extra breath to really understand and process what was being said between Garrus' words. _Showing symptoms of early onset Corpalis syndrome_ , an earlier doctor had written on Garrus' file. Mordin included his own notes, that of which were mostly just a confirmation of what had already been said. She scrolled down, and in that instant looked up towards where Garrus was standing, watching her. The words on the screen immediately jumped to life in the back of her throat.

She didn't—couldn't—say anything to him. In the distance, Garrus simply shrugged and went back to getting dressed like nothing was amiss, and Shepard… Shepard was only able to sit perfectly still where she was, so unmoving she wasn't even sure if she'd drawn a complete breath. Her eyes dropped back down to the data pad and limply she dragged a finger over the length of the screen, trying to decipher the complicated into more layman's terms for herself. There wasn't much to be understood, not by someone without any kind of medical training, but she knew what was important. Hell, she'd seen it with her own two eyes just now, and if she really thought about it, Shepard was sure she'd be able to find other instances she'd simply overlooked.

"Eve," Garrus mumbled to himself quietly in the bedroom. "Eve." He said her name again, this time with a familiarity and recognition, and then with a sheepishness that was more his own, he coughed to clear his throat, and stood a little straighter. "She's not what I expected," he shyly added, his voice louder to reach her.

But Shepard had nothing to say, instead drew her hand to her face, elbow on the arm rest of her chair. Her hand ran across her brow, bent downward to shield her eyes away, giving herself a sense of privacy when she needed it most. She took a deep breath, and for the first time in a long time, sat still just because she didn't know what else to do.

"Shepard?" Garrus said, no longer from far away but right beside her. Concern was heavy in his vocals and soon enough he touched the bare skin of her shoulder. "What's wrong?"

Her body trembled at the contact and she could do nothing else but shut her eyes and lean into where their skin met. Garrus knelt beside her and took her cheek in his hand, drawing her face towards his, forcing her hand to drop away. Her eyes were watered and red, and somewhere inside of herself, Shepard's figurative skin crawled at just how much emotion she shared in front of another. She couldn't remember the last time she'd cried, although she'd felt the tears begging to form in her eyes when she'd said goodbye to her crew and turned herself over to the Alliance all those months ago.

Garrus wore a wide-eyed fear as he watched her, his mandibles spreading and pulling back in tightly as though he was prepared to say or do something but always teetered on the edge and came back. He opted to lean into her and brush their cheeks together. "What happened?"

"You," she said, her fingers digging into the back of his collar, unconcerned if pain pricked his flesh.

"I don't—" he started, but before he could finish, Shepard was pulling back, putting enough distance between them only to tip forward the procured data pad. There was short lived hesitance, but he gave in the nearer she pushed it across her lap towards him, and though it took a minute for him to read and comprehend what she'd seen—Shepard knew exactly when he truly understood. He didn't look at her for a full minute after, his body sighing and deflating where he kneeled.

"Were you just never going to tell me?"

"If I could help it… yeah," he admitted.

"Well—" she breathed deep, those hadn't been the words she'd been expecting, and as a result, what left her mouth hadn't been what she'd been expecting either. " _Fuck you_ , Garrus."

That got his attention. He looked back up to her, but stayed silent.

"Fuck you." Shepard pushed her chair away, standing in the process and moving around him, cutting back to the bedroom of her quarters. Every muscle in her body tightened all at once, blood pumping fast just like it did in the middle of a particularly bad fire fight. There were no bullets flying now though, just the pure, unadulterated infuriation she felt. Infuriation and… well, a lot more than that. A lot more that she didn't know how to contend with yet.

She tore into her closet, pulling out a fresh tank top and duty shirt, but when it caught on the hanger she opted to pay into that anger rather than even a breath of patience, instead tossing the fabric back into the closet, jarring the hanger as it and the garment fell to the floor among her other, overcrowded things. It was the only thing she knew how to do, the only way she knew how to be, and what was more—it was _easy_ to be this way. To be angry, to feel nothing but that warmth of hatred and madness because the reality and opposite was so very cold.

Garrus, wisely, watched her as he stood, but chose to stay out of it.

"Fuck you," she repeated, looking back to him, though now those tears that had once been in her eyes had fallen, wetting her cheeks. Shepard set her hands on her hips, just above her underwear, and it was a position she'd taken many times when she needed to summon a kind of inner strength or command attention. She'd just never done it before in her skivvies, and rather than give her what she needed, it seemed to sap away what little she'd held onto. Her shoulders slouched, her eyes shut, her face crinkled, and on wobbly legs, Shepard simply _cried_.

Garrus knew when it was his time, and now… now was his time. He enveloped her in his arms and held her close. She sobbed against his chest.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, and he was, there was no question of the truth in his voice.

"You're a bastard," she said between gulping breaths. "You're a fucking bastard, you know that?"

"Yeah," he brushed his mandible to the top of her head. "I know."

He held her until the worst subsided, though Shepard was certain that aching pit she felt in her stomach—a place so deep she'd never known it could even exist—would never let her go. When she could breathe again, they only _just_ pulled apart, bodies separating only long enough until their foreheads could meet together, eyes shut.

"What does this mean, Garrus?"

"It means…" he sighed, and through the subtlest of movements brushed his forehead's plates against hers soothingly, reassuring. "I don't know what it means. I suspected something was wrong after Bahak. Things that were simple, that I knew so well… they didn't come as easy anymore. And when I went back to Palaven, after my mother died," his breathing stuttered at the memory and Shepard pressed an affectionate palm to his mandible to help him along, "I saw a doctor, found out what I feared more than almost anything else."

"What do you know?" Shepard asked, this time lifting her forehead from his, blinking bleary eyes open to look at him, catch his eyes and the painful truth there as they spoke.

"I was stage three. Now Mordin says I'm pushing the fourth."

Shepard didn't need to know how many levels there were to it. Five or five thousand. No matter the amount, the illness having a hold on him at all was too much. Her hand found his and with the greatest of strength, she squeezed it.

"Is it moving… fast?" Her eyebrows furrowed at her phrasing. "Progressing. Is it progressing fast?"

His facial plates downshifted and Shepard had seen enough. She shut her eyes again briefly, wincing through the pain as though it were a physical ache.

"You've got a lot on your plate Shepard, I didn't want to give you something else to worry about."

"To worry about?" She accused, incredulous. "To worry about? What, like you're a head cold? Or having to dip into the reserve fuel on a long mission? This isn't—" her hand waved between them without direction, "what you mean to me isn't _something_ , it's not something to just _worry_ about. Even before you and I were _you and I_ , you never meant so little to me. Maybe—maybe you don't feel the same," she held up a palm silencing him preemptively, "but I don't care."

She could tell there was a world of things on the tip of his tongue, things he wanted to say, things he might not ever, but Shepard was content to just imagine them instead.

"What can they do for you? Are you taking any kind of medication, should you be getting some kind of treatment that you aren't getting because you're here with me?"

"There's not much they can do," he sighed, "Mordin already requested the research from the salarians who were treating my mother. So… after he cures the genophage and helps us kill the reapers, maybe there will be time for me."

Even at the end of the line on Omega, Shepard hadn't heard such despair in his voice. It was as though he'd already given up, resigned to his fate, and that perhaps hurt more than the secret he'd kept. She put her hands to either side of his face and turned his head towards her so he couldn't look away. Shepard steeled herself, finding that strength that had evaded her before.

"You listen to me, Garrus. You're going to be _fine_ ," she said, nodding as she did, "and I'm going to make sure of it. Do you understand that? I'm going to take care of you, and when it's over, when you're healthy and this is all past you, you'll take care of me. We're going to hit this head on. This isn't your battle to fight alone anymore. I've got you."

If there was reluctance or doubt in him, he didn't show it. Garrus shallowly dipped his head in a nod, even as she held it otherwise steady.

She forced a smile through the tears that had gone dry, relinquishing her hold on him only to bury her face in the crook of his neck. There, she let the near silent sound of his breathing once again overtake her like it had in the middle of the night. "Good."


	3. Strange but not a stranger

"Real problem," Mordin said as he paced the small amount of open floor space of Shepard's cabin, "lies in reversing degeneration, not just halting progress."

For an hour they'd talked in circles about Corpalis syndrome, and though Shepard had asked, pleaded, and begged Mordin to leave most of the medical jargon behind, she still only had half an understanding of the disease. Garrus, though without a medical degree of his own, had seemed to keep pace with the discussion, and Shepard, somewhat solemnly, knew that the reasoning was in large part due to the fact that for him this was the _second_ time he'd lived through this. The first time with his mother, the second time now for himself.

Shepard touched thumb and forefinger against shut eyelids, pressing back at the inflating pressure she already felt growing inside her skull. "Cerberus brought me back from the dead and you're saying you can't figure out a way to repair a little brain damage, Mordin?"

Those big bug-eyes blinked once at her, followed by the off balanced pull of a smile at the corner of his mouth. "Not the same by any means—but didn't say can't. Said _problem_."

"Then why have we even been talking this long?" She asked, perturbed, and let out an exhausted breath. "If you can fix it, then," she made eye contact with him, jaw stiff, "fix it."

"Shepard," Garrus said from where he sat on the opposite end of the couch. "It's not that easy."

Her head lolled to the side, gaze shifting from Mordin to the other occupant of the room. "But it _can_ be done. That's what matters." Where her anger and sadness had been born of uncertainty earlier in the day, Shepard had systematically replaced all those wavering pieces of her with emotional concrete to better help her see things through.

From where he stood, Mordin lifted his head, ready to speak, but Shepard intervened, already knowing full well what the doctor intended on saying.

"I think it's time we finally had dinner," she said quickly as she stood, her eyes deliberately meeting Mordin's. He acquiesced his curiosity with a nod, and then Shepard offered a hand to Garrus where he sat, helping to pull him to his feet though it was unnecessary. Side by side, she walked Garrus up the steps and to her doorway, Mordin trailing behind. At the open elevator door, Shepard touched Garrus again, this time gently squeezing at his forearm. "Any word from your father?" And though she was genuinely concerned, her words served more as a distraction than anything else.

"No." His head shook.

Shepard cupped his cheek and kissed his mandible. When she pulled back he was smiling. The salarian moved to join him into the elevator.

"Mordin—" she said, feigning her best impression of sudden recollection, "Garrus, go down ahead and save me a seat. I've got something to ask Mordin about Maelon's data."

The elevator doors closed on Garrus' nodding image.

"Question regarding Eve?" Mordin asked with a level of restrained excitement.

Shepard, however, shut down the source of his interest immediately. "No," she said, moving back into her cabin to pause at her desk, leaning into the edge. Her eyes sought out the fish tank opposite her, watching the eels and fish swim on by, circulating round and round the small tank space, but soon enough her vision went out of focus, lost in her own thoughts instead. She breathed deep. "I wanted to talk to you alone."

"Ah," Mordin hummed, and he, too, focused on the aquarium while he folded his hands behind his back. "Wouldn't approve," he guessed. "Didn't want him to hear. Well… might as well say it, then."

"How long will it take you? If supplies and equipment weren't an issue, how long would it take you to come up with something to stall—if not cure—what Garrus has?"

"Answer not possible," Mordin replied truthfully. "Depends on breakthrough, set backs—and most important— _time_ to work _._ Genophage cure is priority now."

"I'm not your commander anymore," Shepard started, "I can't order you to do or not do anything."

Mordin made a sound of agreement, letting her continue on.

"But something I can do is suggest, and what I _suggest_ you do is to start splitting your time between what you're currently working on and trying to help Garrus." The words left her and still Shepard almost couldn't believe she'd said them. She was thankful all at once that he spared her the punishment of looking at her with his dark eyes while she spoke, so she didn't have to feel his judgmental guilt with her own.

"Without genophage cure," he shook his head dismissively, "no help from krogan. Problematic for war against reapers, Shepard. Need them in fight."

"You're right," the lines of wrinkles in her forehead made an appearance as her face tightened, brows furrowed together. No matter how she phrased things in her head, there was no way to lessen the severity of the meaning. "But I know you're also wasting a lot of time trying to save Eve. She might already be too far gone, Mordin, and Garrus… Garrus is here and we _can_ do something about it. So I'm asking you to make the choice to help a friend—your friend—and in kind, to help me."

From where he was a few feet away, Mordin made no movement or outward acknowledgement of her words. Perhaps, she thought, it was for the best.

"But," Shepard said softly, the kind of delicate tone usually reserved for Garrus in utmost privacy when reminding him of the equal status they held to one another, "that's your choice. All I can do is ask."

Silence filled the room save for the quiet, barely there vibration of the fish tank's bubbler. "That all, Shepard?"

"Yeah." She stood, arms crossed over her chest. "Go get something to eat, I'll be down in a minute."

Without another word, Mordin excused himself and left Shepard on her own. If there was one thing Mordin was good for, it was for discretion, so while Shepard didn't fear word spreading of what she'd asked of him, she had other fears to contend with. The fear of condemning that krogan woman to death for the sake of her lover, the fear of what it would mean if Mordin chose not to heed her words, the fear of losing Garrus because he got sick at an inopportune time.

Shepard gave herself a minute to regain a steadiness of breath, and when she once again felt ready to face the rest of her crew, she headed down to join them.

—

"Oh fuck me," Shepard groused into her headset as the last of the pair of power conduits came online, the old circuity sparking with the heavy level of corrosion.

"Done playing electrician back there?" From the front of the open, dilapidated room, Garrus called back to her. He fired off a single shot from his rifle and somewhere in the distance a centurion fell down dead.

"I so didn't sign up for this shit."

"If I could remind you two _children_ ," Liara interrupted from her own flanking position, "two dozen Cerberus soldiers still stand between us and getting that cannon working again."

Shepard responded through gritted teeth. "You don't say. Ready to make a run for it?" Though she had no intention of using her weapon in the dash, Shepard hit the release mechanism on the Valiant, dropping out the exhausted thermal clip before feeding in the fresh one.

The asari let out an exaggerated breath of air. "They couldn't have put the power center closer to the control room, could they?"

"Urban planners—the krogan were not." Shepard patted Garrus' back as he took aim again and fired, the recoil of his weapon impacting the joint of his shoulder. "You're up, big guy."

Garrus was the first one out and running, Liara and Shepard following behind as they dared to cross the expanse of the abandoned krogan base for the third time. They'd been methodical on the first go: ducking for cover, annihilating Cerberus troops one by one as they cleaned house on the way to the control room marked on their maps. Things had been _textbook_. But like every mission, the textbook had gotten shot to hell, binding ripped and pages torn the second they'd tried to even engage the cannon's controls. That return trip had been a little less careful, and this third one… there had been far better days as both exhaustion and frustration took hold. It was supposed to be a simple job; she hadn't prepared for this.

Ahead of her, Garrus stumbled over a cracked piece of flooring, skidding on the knees of his hard suit.

" _Go_!" Shepard shouted to Liara before the asari could even slow down. "Get upstairs! Secure the back entrance," she ordered. Garrus was scrambling back onto his feet by time she reached him and Shepard, in her desperate assistance, dug her fingers into the vulnerable joints of his armor, helping to heft him up as they moved. Together they made it up the ramp to the console room, both taking deep, heaving breaths. Shepard found cover in the entranceway, drawing her gun to her chest. "Get that cannon online, Garrus."

He needn't be told, already at the foreign console.

Shepard engaged her cloak, ducked out of cover, and took a rapid series of successive shots. _Two down, one without shields_ , she said to herself as she pulled herself back to safety behind the thick carved stone doorway. Only stopping to reload, she took a breath of air, holding it in her lungs for the steadying guidance and repeated the process while she bought Garrus time. She kept careful count of her tally. _Four down. Turret next._

"Everything alright down there, Liara?"

"Oh it's wonderful, Shepard," her strained voice responded over the comm link. "You two take your time."

_Seven down. Nemesis hiding on the left._ She cloaked, took aim, and with a double tap of bullets, brought down the sniper's shields before taking her life. _Eight down._ Eight. That was too many. Too long. Shepard swung her head back around to where Garrus stood in the heart of the room. He'd torn his helmet off at some point while she'd been busy keeping a watchful eye, and where he was usually the picture of calm while caught up in the material in front of him, he looked _lost._ Without a second thought, Shepard swiped a hand over her omni-tool, severing the connection with the Normandy and the rest of the crew.

"Garrus," she said, calling to him. He didn't look up.

Shepard engaged her cloak and swung back out to check for any oncoming enemies, and finding the view from her vantage point empty, turned once again towards the room.

"Garrus!"

She ran for him, climbing through the hologram data board and over the first and second console until she was by his side. Shepard grabbed Garrus by the collar of his armor, tugging him upright from where he'd been hunched forward above the terminal. His eyes blinked rapidly as her face came into focus.

"It won't _work_ ," he said.

"What do you mean it won't work? Did you input the right configuration code? Run the authentication protocol?"

"It just—" Garrus' head rocked back and forth in a firm denial. "I've _tried_. And tried. And—" His voice rose, speech increasing from that usual calm, cool, and collected tone his sub-vocals usually kept. Never had she known him to fall into a panic.

The familiar, tinny sound of a smoke canister hitting the ground pierced Shepard's ears as it bounced and finally exploded in the doorway she'd been guarding half a minute before. Footsteps pounded the stone walkway outside.

"I need you to focus Garrus," Shepard said, reaching around his back to pull at where his assault rifle sat stashed away, safe and secure. She shoved the gun into his hands and just as the first shots were fired in their direction leaving her shields flickering, she dropped to the floor to take cover behind the desk, pulling Garrus with her. "You can still shoot, can't you?" That, Shepard suspected, would be one of the few things he'd always retain. It was muscle memory after all, training that the body would recall even when the mind would not. The question, however, served a more important purpose, and that was to pull Garrus back to the present, to give him something to focus where he'd previously failed.

Beside her he nodded, finger finding the trigger, and even in his state Shepard could tell he was silently counting the number of shots fired, waiting for an opening to pop out of cover and make his move.

"EDI," Shepard said, activating her comm link once again. "Got a problem down here. Garrus' omni-tool got damaged," she easily lied to the AI and those listening in, "gonna need you to do this the hard way—route yourself in to the system through mine. Make it _quick_."

—

A full night of sleep hadn't found Shepard since the exceptionally calm days of her internment in Vancouver. Whether it was getting up early, heading to bed late, or as the last few days been—a mix of both with the unpleasant addition of just being unable to sleep at all—exhaustion had once again become a regular part of her life.

Though they'd been under time constraints when the Normandy had been a Cerberus operated vessel, the guilt of an extra day spent planning and preparing only came with the possibility of another outer rim colony becoming a target for the Collectors. A couple hundred people, maybe, were at the risk of losing their lives, and though Shepard took no chance of loss of innocent life lightly, taking a breather these days usually meant the lost of tens of thousands, if not millions while she tried to gather herself together. Sleep didn't just come with nightmares anymore, now it came with a heavy, guilty price.

Hunger panes stabbed at the inside of her stomach, the simple rumbling of emptiness gone hours ago. Shepard fished out a generic canister of protein shake from the refrigerator in the mess, not exactly an appetizing meal but a quick fix to a problem she didn't feel equipped in handling, popping the top open as she drew the mystery drink to her lips. _Strawberry_. It had a sweetness to it, too much in fact, but anything was an improvement on the more savory of flavors that more or less tasted like gelatinous yack. With her back to the wall, Shepard shut her eyes as she drank down the late night snack, counting down how long it took for each sip and swallow not in seconds, but instead in the loss of lives on Earth and across the galaxy. Five thousand. Ten thousand. Fifteen thousand.

The sound of the doors to the main battery—and they had a distinct sound with the extra protection afforded to that part of the ship, doors thicker, hydraulics stronger—woke her from her downtrodden time keeping, and where she expected to see Garrus, Shepard instead found Mordin retreating away, the doors closing behind him. Her ribs felt as though they clenched her heart and lungs a little tighter; she hadn't seen Garrus since they'd returned from their planetside mission nearly six hours ago.

"Mordin," Shepard said out of the formality of keeping up appearances, a tip of her head. Though she'd considered the salarian to be a friend since he'd joined the crew of the Normandy, something had changed in the last few days. Not that Shepard didn't know what the reason was, she just refused to talk of it, and Mordin, too, seemed content to keep his distance. "Everything ready for tomorrow?"

"Ready as can be," he confirmed. "Still have to synthesize on site, prepared for all possibilities."

Shepard's eyes flickered away from Mordin and over towards the med-bay where the curtains were still drawn. She hadn't been back there since the day she'd talked to Eve, a choice born mostly out of shame. Her eyes glanced back. "Good. I'll… I'll see you in the morning, then."

"Goodnight," Mordin said, "…Shepard."

The can only half empty, even the innate and primal need to sate her hunger had faded away after the short conversation. Shepard abandoned the drink on the countertop and made her course for where she knew Garrus to be hiding away. Contrary to her expectations, he wasn't standing at the console or terminal, but instead half-reaching into the mechanical parts of the Thanix cannon itself. A wrench slipped from his grasp, falling to the floor, but before he could reach for it Shepard had it in her hand, extending it on back. Garrus, with a nod of his head in thanks, accepted the tool.

"Always were good with your hands," Shepard said, laughing at the tail end of her words.

He said nothing, instead letting the squeak of greased metal on metal tightening together speak for itself.

"You just going to sit down here and avoid me for the rest of our lives?"

Garrus went still, and though she couldn't see around the bulk of the machine into where he worked, she knew his hands to be unmoving as well. "No," he grunted.

"So how long are you going to sulk? A day? Two? Because I'm hoping to hit the Citadel again after we settle this bullshit tomorrow and I make myself god mother to a lot of little krogan kids, and I'd hate to have to eat all alone. You know the trouble I get up to when I'm there on my own—I always eat at the worst places without a local to guide my way." Shepard nudged her elbow into his side.

Garrus only leaned deeper into the casing, and just when Shepard thought the hope for any and all conversation was lost, he spoke. "You should ground me."

"Ground you? Why would I do that?"

"Because I'm a liability to the mission, to _you_."

Shepard sighed to herself, running a hand through her dirtied hair. "It was my fault. I know you're having problems and I assigned you a task I shouldn't have. That's on me, not you."

"Oh _bullshit_ , Shepard," Garrus argued as he pulled back to stare at her. His glare was stern and severe.

"There's not another person on the team who can't do your job. Well—maybe not James—he'd sooner beat a terminal with his head than fix the problem. But EDI, Liara? They can get it done. None of this is even registering on my list of problems right now, Garrus. You're still the best shot we've got and the person I trust most, so don't give me that shit. I'm not an idiot, if it gets to the point where I know you should stay back, believe me—I'll keep you back, if only to keep _you_ safe."

By now, Shepard was used to his eyes on her. From the way he'd first looked at her with great respect all those years ago before she'd died, even to the way his eyes held that playful lust since their relationship has turned more than just professional—a look of _I've seen you without your clothes on_ that when given across a crowded room of crew and friends could still make her cheeks blush. But the way he watched her now was none of the many ways he'd look at her before. Now he was unsure and ashamed, like he didn't think he even had the right to meet her eyes.

"I didn't want to tell you," Garrus started, bending down to pick up the various pieces of equipment at his feet, "because I didn't want you to look at me and see that I was weak. I didn't want to disappoint you, Shepard. Everyone here—everyone that's _ever_ been here—we're all so afraid of disappointing you." He stood, setting the contents of his hands on the table behind him as he gave his back to her. "And I could never stand for that to be me."

"You're _not_ ," she interjected immediately, placing a hand on the breadth of his back, the other along his forearm. His head turned only slightly, catching her in view from the corner of his eye. Shepard shook her head. "You could never be."

Garrus breathed deep and sighed, his head hanging, eyes shut.

"You're coming with me tomorrow," she said, her hand sliding up to the nape of his neck, caressing the leathery skin between the plates at the back of his skull. "Which means you should be asleep. You know not getting enough rest will only make you feel worse."

"I can't. I've got to close up the chasis and then de-bug the system to make sure the changes I made are in place."

"Yeah? Well," Shepard swallowed, lips pursed as she glanced around the battery for a solution. "Well… good thing engineer Adams is coming on shift in half an hour—I'll get him to finish the job."

"The drive core is _not_ the same—"

"Yeah, yeah," she let him complain, fingers tugging at his hand as she pulled him away from his station and back towards the entrance. "But he'll get the job done and you'll get sleep, so I really don't care if you think he can't manage."

"Shepard—"

"Not a word, Vakarian. Not a word." Shepard reached for the light switch as they left, their hands joined together while they made their way back towards the mess hall and kitchen. It was empty for the most part, and though they had never bothered to hide their relationship from the crew once she'd found him on Menae, the more outward displays of affection between the pair had always been reserved for behind closed doors. Tonight, however, Shepard enjoyed the warmth his fingers folded into hers offered.

"Go on up," she said as they reached the elevator. "Take a shower, get in bed. I didn't eat dinner—I'm gonna grab a bar of something and I'll meet you up there."

He eyed her with suspicion, but with her insistent fingers nudging him along, Garrus gave in.

"I'll just be a minute," she reassured with a tight smile.

The doors shut and Shepard retraced her steps, passing on by that canister of vaguely strawberry flavored protein, instead returning to the main battery she'd vacated only a minute before. She turned the lights back on and took a deep breath, hoping to restore even half an ounce of the energy she'd need.

"EDI?"

"Yes, Shepard?"

"I'm going to need you to talk me through closing up the Thanix cannon's casing. And let me know when Garrus falls asleep."

—

Planetside, Shepard's heel tapped on the flooring of the truck as they headed towards the rendezvous point. That jittery feeling, she couldn't tell if it was due to nerves or the stimulants Chakwas had reluctantly given her before heading out for the day's mission. Shepard remembered why she'd avoided the drugs in the first place: her skin felt like it was crawling.

"Everything alright, Commander?" Eve asked.

Her head whipped up, alarmed at the sudden question. "Fine," Shepard answered, although the dalatrass' revelation regarding the shroud was on the tip of her tongue. "Nervous— _anxious,_ " she corrected, glancing around the interior of the vehicle. Garrus fidgeted in his seat, the only other occupant who seemed to be showing their cards at face value. Mordin was as unflappable as ever; Wrex somewhere bordering on exhilaration with the promise of both a cure for the genophage _and_ a fight; and James, she thought, might have been asleep.

The car came to a stop and Shepard got out. And there, that was exactly when the plan went to absolute shit.

Proceeding on foot the rest of the way, Shepard worked on autopilot as they fought through one of Tuchanka's ancient cities. Kalros became their ally in the fight, and Shepard only just barely made it to the first hammer in thanks to her cloak. The ground beneath her rumbled, a telltale sign of the thresher maw that lurked below as well as the brutes that raged on, smashing into the pavement as Garrus and James played chicken with the beasts.

Shepard's heart pounded where it lay in her chest, a pulse so loud she could hear it in her ears. She was going to sleep for two days, she promised herself, if she made it out of this alive. Like the day prior, Shepard braced herself and when there was an opening to be had, she took it, dashing back across the ceremonial grounds for the other side.

A brute, purely by chance, slammed into Shepard's invisible form as it moved towards Vega.

"Shepard!" Garrus yelled in her direction as the cloak flickered off, malfunctioning.

It wasn't just the air that had been knocked from her lungs, it had felt as though her life had been taken as well. Shepard rolled to the side, drawing her body up against the nearest structure in an attempt to dodge any other stomps of the raging brutes that passed her by.

"Shepard!"

She struggled as she attempted to pull herself to her feet through the shallowest of breaths and despite the crippling pain she felt in every inch of her body. Behind her, Shepard could hear the sound of a brute as it approached her position, and with only a second to hit her omni-tool, having her suit deliver a single dose of medi-gel to mute the pain, she took off running once again. Albeit, this time, without the safety of a tactical cloak and speed on her side.

"Go back to the trucks!" Shepard yelled, waving her arms back towards where Garrus and James were already retreating, leading the bulk of the enemies away. "I'll take care of the cure!"

Shepard rang the second hammer just in time, clutching herself to the stonework as she watched Kalros, mother of all thresher maw, fight off the reaper to defend her home. Shepard was in awe. She wished it was her.

—

Limping into the shroud facility's base, it wasn't exactly the scene they'd planned and hoped for—no, they'd intended on having a lot more time and muscle with them for this—but like always, it would have to do. "Mordin, is the cure ready?"

"Yes, loaded for dispersal in two minutes. But Eve," he looked up from the terminal, meeting Shepard's eyes. She knew what he was going to say before he even opened his mouth. "Dead."

_What happened_? Shepard wanted to ask, but Mordin would lie to her, blame something about stress sampling and the trauma of the whole ordeal despite the data they'd saved from Maelon's torturous work. The reality was that Shepard knew that no matter what he said, Eve had died because of what she'd asked. Mordin had been too good of a friend to her to say no, even when it came with the consequence of someone else's life.

Shepard swallowed hard. "A lot of people died today, Mordin," she stumbled over her words, stuttering, "…there's nothing we can do."

"Wrex will stabilize krogan, all will be well." A nearby explosion rocked the grounds, brittle and broken portions of the building falling down around them, and just as before in the truck, Mordin remained unfazed. "Control room at top of tower. Have to take elevator up."

"You're going up there?"

"Yes, readings at lab suggest temperature malfunction. Could effect cure viability. Need to adjust settings manually."

"It's not…" Shepard shook her head, the conversation with the dalatrass coming back. "It's not a malfunction. It's sabotage. Your people did it years ago."

"Of course," he said, turning around to look up at the monument to the krogan's suffering. "Shroud necessary for distribution. STG would have back up plan, contingency to stop cure." Mordin hesitated, head bowed. "And you knew."

"The dalatrass offered me a deal. Her full support for the crucible project."

"Difficult moral circumstance. Salarian assistance reluctant, minimal. Need their loyalty for intel, assistance with crucible. Understandable," he said with cold logic, turning to face back at her. "But not acceptable. Will not sacrifice krogan for political gain."

Mordin marched forward to a most certain death with determination in his every step. He had a wrong to correct, a guilt that weighed on him just as hers did, but every foot, every inch, every hairsbreadth closer he moved towards that elevator, Shepard could feel her own hope slipping away with him. She hurried on his heels.

"Every time we've talked about this before, you've defended the genophage! How can you change your mind now?"

"I made a mistake!" He yelled, whirling back around on her as they came face to face. His voice and conviction pierced down her spine like nails on a chalkboard.

"Garrus—" she choked on the name. "You're the only one, Mordin. The only one who's going to be able to help him while he still has a chance."

"Eve's dead. Krogan deserve a cure."

"They _do_ ," she pleaded. "And Eve's dead because you tried to help Garrus. Are you going to let her death be for nothing? Because if you go up there now, Mordin, if you go up there and die trying to do this, you're killing Garrus with you. And Eve—she'll _still_ be dead."

"Need to go," Mordin argued with her, "running out of time."

Shepard watched him move to turn back for the elevator, this time within arm's reach of it. She could see the immediate future in her head as he got onto the lift and rode it upward towards the control room, giving his life to cure the genophage but taking away what mattered most to her with him. Garrus, she knew, would die to the illness that took his mother. There'd be no hope for him, not in the war torn universe they lived in. Would he even survive the end of the war? Would he leave her before then, taking the noble route to remove himself as a distraction from her life and mission?

Tears wet her eyes. She thought of having to say goodbye, or worse, not being there to say it at all. She felt cornered, pushed to the brink, and so Shepard did what she'd done every other time her back had been to the wall… she raised her sidearm. Her hand shook, worse than it had on Torfan when she'd fired the first bullet that started the massacre on both sides, and unlike earlier, the trembling of her limb was not from the stims that flooded her bloodstream. She was scared of having to put a bullet into the man she'd grown to call a friend… but more terrified of what it would mean if she let Mordin get on that elevator.

"I love him," she said, her voice quivering almost as much as her hand. "Someone else is going to get it _wrong._ It has to be you, andif you get on that elevator…" her mouth went dry and she found herself almost unable to speak at all.

"Not your decision," Mordin bit back at her.

Shepard repeated herself, strengthening her grip on the pistol as she prepared to lay out her ultimatum. "If you get on that elevator, you cure the genophage but the galaxy dies. I won't finish what I started if it means I lose him in the end. I'd sooner take the Normandy to some planet out in the Terminus to wait out the next however many years Garrus has left as the rest of the galaxy gets torn apart by reapers, than I would save a world without him in it. Walk away, Mordin."

Her vision blurred, the moisture of tears filling her eyes as she pleaded with him, not just for her or for Garrus, but for the sake of the galaxy. It was a cruel trick to hold hundreds of billions hostage for one solitary person, but try as she might, Shepard could not lower her arm. She'd taken a stand, and like always, she would hold to it.

"Krogan will find out—Wrex will know of deception eventually," he said.

"It's not forever, they _do_ deserve it. You and I, we'll give it to them when this is over. We'll come back and do it right. You still have the cure—that doesn't change. But please Mordin… I don't have a choice. I need you."

Mordin turned back towards the elevator, taking the final step. Shepard's finger brushed over the trigger, nearly pulling as her body was wracked with sobs on the verge of escaping. "Please," she begged, and just as she was about to pull the trigger, Mordin pressed the button on the outside of the elevator, sending it up… empty.

"We come back," he said, still facing away. "You give your word?"

Shepard's arm dropped to her side as she hunched forward, releasing a cry of relief. "We'll come back."


End file.
